A Macro View of the Village's Finances

For five months Garden City's executive staff has been carefully monitoring expenditures and revenues in a proactive effort to keep finances in check for the 2013-14 fiscal year, which began June 1.

Village auditor Jim Olivo, with help from the village's department heads, provided a macro view of Garden City's fiscal health at the Nov. 7 board meeting, noting a spike in needed vehicle maintenance during the first quarter.

"The wear-and-tear repairs are more age-related than anything. It's kind of reflective of the practices that we've had for the last several years of deferring equipment purchases. We're starting to see that ... in different departments than what we would've expected when we were preparing the budget," Olivo said.

"We are now transferring funds between departments at a much earlier stage than we have done in the past. We usually ran into this problem in April or May ... When equipment breaks it's very expensive to repair."

Olivo said the administration has also been working with the CSEA to avoid layoffs. When trustees authorized an incentive plan approximately one month ago, officials anticipated six people would take the deal and calculated approximately $500,000 in savings.

"That target was reached by the anticipated separation of seven individuals taking the incentive," Olivo said. Further, three more employees have left through natural attrition - an engineer and two firefighters.

From data collected from the village's departments, Olivo said the plan has effectively worked. "The savings is akin exactly to what we were targeting. The pluses and minuses are all over the board. There are several departments that are going to turn back fairly substantial surpluses. There's a couple of departments that are going to need some influx of money but on a net cost-out basis the salaries are going to be about $15,000 lower than we thought that we needed them to be. The surplus will be $15,000 higher is a better way to put it. Looking at the benefits area, that's going to be about $30,000 higher."

Looking at health insurance, a 7 percent increase is anticipated, Olivo said. "We are awaiting data. That's the high side," he said. "It could be as low as three percent, which is what we're hoping for."

By Department:

Recreation and Parks
Assistant superintendent Edward Fronckwicz said the department has a projected shortfall of $25,093; the parks division is running on a $77,200 deficit while the recreation division has a positive $52,100. "These budgets reflect two less laborers in the parks division and one less laborer in the recreation division," he said, adding that the department is reducing part-time staff wherever possible.

Public Works
Public Works director Robert Mangan said a senior engineer left for a better offer at National Grid and though the department has been able to offset his absence with other staff filling in, "his absence will still be felt."

Further, Mangan said maintenance and equipment are a major concern. "Our equipment has reached a critical stage where lack of a scheduled replacement program is being felt," he said. "Sandy also put an undue stress on a lot of our trucks, which had to be overloaded to transfer a lot of the storm debris to the Nassau County drop-off location in Hempstead. They were worked pretty hard for a long time. Hopefully they hold up during leaf season and the upcoming storm season."

Fire Department
Chief William Castoro said the department had two unexpected retirements this year which returned "quite a large amount of surplus to the salary line." Contrary to that, he said, four firefighters are currently out sick. "One was unexpected, which caused an overtime increase. We're looking at scheduling changes to try to keep overtime down," he said.

Further, Chief Castoro said savings under the new medical contract could enable the department to return approximately $25,000 to $30,000 of its operating budget back to the village.

Police Department
Police Commissioner Kenneth Jackson said the department is considering all options to find savings in personnel and non-personnel categories in an attempt to achieve a balanced budget. "At this time the projected savings is approximately $90,000, leaving at this time a $24,200 anticipated deficit," he said. Much of that deficit is in the equipment line, according to Jackson, who added that the department is trying to defer as much as it can. 

Further, the department is expecting $63,000+ in workers compensation reimbursements for lost time due to long-term, job-related injuries, Jackson said.

Building Department
Superintendent Mike Filippon said it's essential the department replace a plumbing inspector position, which would automatically realize a $28,000 savings because of a salary differential. "However there are incentive payments that have to be made and when you factor that in we would need to delay the replacement of that individual by at least a month or more to close out the year with a zero increase," Filippon said. He added that the department is "constantly trying to keep our heads above water with permits and anything that affects that negatively of course is going to have a notable impact."

Village Clerk
Village clerk Brian Ridgway said he's always looking for grant opportunities and will be submitting an application prior to the early February deadline.

Olivo told trustees department budgets are very tight. "We do need to have a very, very calm winter. If that does not happen we will have some issues," he said. "We will have to go to contingent."